about

"Clothe Yourself in Righteousness" is Jon’s ambitious new project on Quakerism and nakedness: how Early Friends would strip down and go naked through the streets in 17th century England, exploring how he is called as an artist to do the same.

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Smithfield Market, early in the day
the crowd parts around him
and the people fall away
mothers cover childs' ears for fear of what he'll say

He says:
"I'm naked because we all are
and God sees through this mess.
Your identity's a farce
before birth and after death
you're not a banker or a lawyer
or a well-to-do man
You're just another beggar
with outstretched hands
and you could fill them up with beauty
you could fill them up with joy
you could fill them up when times are rough
with the glory of the
Lord."

"But you wrap yourselves in linens
and you wrap yourselves in silks
and you wrap yourselves in blood and hell and guilt."

______________________

And he didn't choose to come here.
If he made a choice at all,
it was to listen, and when he heard it,
heed the call.

And he's been given legs to stand on
He's been given hearts to open
He's been given gifts and burdens plenty,
knowing that he's broken.

So let him be naked.
Don't avert your eyes.
Take it as a sign that it's time to drop disguises.
Stop hiding behind silence.
Stop hiding behind noise.
Stop hiding your own violence.
Stop hiding from that still, small voice.

Track Name: Lifted Up

And for a moment there
I was ground down
I had my chin on my chest,
infested surround sound.

But I took a breath.
I took a moment.
No,
the rest of this poem's
dedicated to our closeness.

The remainder of my fame
is aimed at saving all the
hopeless.
I'm committed to this human face and
focused.

So now I'm lifted up
and now I'm lifting others with me.
When my silence is serenity's
a sign I'm living simply
and I'm simply living
in this complex world that we've been given.

And I salute the Amish
and all the other life affirming products
of considering our tolerance for process.
It's like a long conversation
in which everyone's involved,
like a deep breath
before you make that phone call.
It's like a solemn, sullen song
that's been written and exists
solely so some lungs can laugh,
only after, in sadness, they've
sung along.

So let's make a contract now:
a contractual agreement
that we'll only be what we really are.
And if you're scarred, then
let me see your scars.
If you're lonely
I get lonely too
and I'm here to rest with you.
Or to wrestle you.
If you need a vessel for the truth,
I'll be a son of a bitch
or the father of our youth
but I'd rather just rest
Let's get arrested.
Only time can test
all this time that we've invested.

If our settlement gets better
in these seven solemn days
I'll be a weatherman
predicting all this rain on faith
that intuition is correct
or I'm supposed to be wrong
like
writing a song
when the notes
have a will of their own
or herding cats into a barn
when they haven't heard
reports that there's a storm on.

And now I'm lifted up
and now I'm lifting others with me.
When my silence is serenity's
a sign I'm living simply
and I'm simply living
in this complex world that we've been given.

And I salute the Amish
and all the other life affirming products
of considering our tolerance for process.
It's like a long conversation
in which everyone's involved,
like a deep breath
before you make that phone call.
It's like a solemn, sullen song
that's been written and exists
solely so some lungs can laugh,
only after, in sadness, they've
sung along.

I'm saying
maybe our sadness
is a natural reaction
to the sad state of living
that's been so in fashion.
This is babylon
and this is heaven on Earth
and since the day of my birth
every breath has been work
and it's worth it.
A solemn, sullen song is just the surface.
It's a tool to be used
for a purpose.

Celebrating life,
celebrating yearning,
celebrating sadness
and our infinite capacity for learning
how to be sad and joyful in the midst of all this mess...
learning how to love life in our faithlessness.

Learning how to love,
especially ourselves.
Forgiveness is a practice that's essential to my health
forgiveness is the difference between heaven and hell
that's not some afterlife shit, I'm talking now.

Sometimes I distance myself
because we're not living deeply
but there's nothing more shallow than alone.

And that's the burden of vision
it's this gift I've been given
and it can help or it can hurt the world I know.

And now this pit that I've lived in
self-indulgent and rigid
looked a whole lot different from below.

And now my life on the surface
is authentic, it's purpose
is to be who I'm here to be
and grow.

So now I'm lifted up
and now I'm lifting others with me.
When my silence is serenity's
a sign I'm living simply
and I'm simply living
in this complex world that we've been given.

And I salute the Amish
and all the other life affirming products
of considering our tolerance for process.
It's like a long conversation
in which everyone's involved,
like a deep breath
before you make that phone call.
It's like a solemn, sullen song
that's been written and exists
solely so some lungs can laugh,
only after, in sadness, they've
sung along.

Track Name: The Burden of Vision

He's in love with the sound of the rain.
Refrain.
Every time around is a little more pain.
Every time around is a bit less change.
Every time that the sound of the speech is the same,
he's to blame.

He's to blame for everything that once was
but now isn't.
He's convicted of his own cynicism
and he lives indifference
because it feels like home.

He wasn't built for the road
but he studied it, so
now he listens to the rhythm
of the television
in an inner city kitchen
in a little Christian mission,
saving souls like his own.

Because he knows the hunger
and he knows the fire
and he knows how it feels to reject desire
and if he had another life to live
shit, he'd want to live it
but he'd probably find a dead child
or saint to give it to.
He'd give it to you if you knew him.
You're part of what he loves.
The Spirit speaks through him
and he looks up.

Because he worships the infinite.
That means everything.
He doesn't even hate his own hate.
And as the television
blares out its lies,
he smiles
and puts some food upon your plate.

Some would call him a saint
but that makes him uncomfortable...
not to say he's to attached to his comfort.
He's loving it.
Whatever "it" might be.
He's not ashamed to say that he's a subject.

Instant gratification gets put off
for long walks and talks with God.
He doesn't pretend to know
why there's so much suffering.
He just serves the food
and goes home and
sobs.

-------------------

And when he's done crying,
the anger stops.
There's a blurry world through his own tears.
And in that blurry world, combining everything,
no lies or distinctions interfere.

And he sees it then:
the beauty in the symphony.
Even in our anger and our fear,
we're so beautiful.
This life is so beautiful.
The truth is here
and it's clear.

And he's not blind.
His eyes are open.
He can see all the things that we call "bad".
But it's redefined
and at times its spoken.
He can see and he's free to be
sad.

Track Name: Don't Doff Your Hat

The scene is calm.
The pastor speaks.
The people sit
in their seats.

The aisles are long.
The church is dark.
It's nearly impossible
to find your spark.

A woman coughs
a baby cries.
The echo is infinite
You close your eyes.
The air is musty
it smells like dust.

You're wondering why
You keep coming back.
I mean, you could be working
or flat on your back,
enjoying the gifts of the creation.

But a matter of law
is a matter of fact.
You pay a tithe to the church.
You pay more than a tax.
You pay in spirit.

Your children are hungry.
The preacher spouts threats
about going to hell
and paying your debts
and you believe him
because he wears that hat.

Then...

In strolls George Fox,
looking like he knows something,
speaking in verse
as if the words weren't rehearsed.
He makes people panic
and they turn away, afraid;
immediately apprehensive
until they heard him say,

"Yo, pastor,
this pulpit is sacred
but so is the shop where I bought my shoes
and these people are sacred
as they're sitting in their pews
they don't know God's love
any less than you."

And sometimes,
when the man is through with his verse
the people rise up
and follow him out of the church
but most times he just gets himself arrested.

He says "powers are vested
in only the few
but God vested his power into you."

It's like this mister Quaker
in your broad brim hat.
You don't doff that hat for nobody.
And if you did doff it,
often its a solemn
little following
of Christ
or the Inner Light.
Whatever you can call it.

In a prison in Exeter
a prisoner got a letter.
He sits in the corner unspoken.
They said he healed people.
Yhey said he might be Christ
with the letter next to him
unopened.

He had written hundreds of pamphlets
to the enemies of Friends.
God was sending him to
listen to the answers,
but one fanciful question
that he had to entertain,
in the same way
as he prayed to understand it.

James Naylor hadn't slept for days.
He might have missed the gameplan
in the following ways
but it also might be true that he was faithful.

He keeps saying the saviors don't favor the few
and that Christ speaks through me too.

It's like this mister Quaker
in your broad brim hat.
You don't doff that hat for nobody.
And if you did doff it
often its a solemn
little following
of Christ
or the Inner Light.
Whatever you can call it.

And is he simple?
Hell yes
that man is simple,
with his simple dress
his simple speech
a simple smile upon his dimple.
When he walks down the street
that street is his temple
cause when you got the right sentiment
every place is sentimental.

And when he sees a noble man
he doesn't call him "you"
because he's talking to one person
not to two.

Because he's kind of a leveller
and he's kind of a ranter
and he's standing with a lantern
trying to show you the light,
cause when the Spirit's on fire
it can burn so bright.

It's like this mister Quaker
in your broad brim hat.
You don't doff that hat for nobody
and if you did doff it
often its a solemn
little following
of Christ
or the Inner Light.
Whatever you can call it.

Okay, so to Mr. George Fox,
Don't doff your hat.

And to James Nayler,
Don't doff your hat.

And out to Margaret Fell,
Don't doff your hat.

And to Solomon Eccles,
Don't doff your hat.

Isaac Penington...
Don't doff your hat.

And to John Woolman,
Don't doff your hat.

I said Lucretia Mott,
Don't doff your hat.

And out to William Penn,
Don't doff your hat.

Track Name: Together We Compose This Bloody, Bleeding, Beating Drum

I once had a job but I lost it in high school.
Whenever I fooled myself into thinking that I needed their help
I was their fool,
but now I'm my fool.
And now I sign pools of rhymes into time cycles.
I align myself with this bed of nails that's been recycled
until I'm finally alive and dying at the same time.

And when I sigh then I'm sighing for peace,
and when I die then I'll rest there.
Where I get my breath there's a source of oxygen,
a solidness imbued with phosphorous,
and a solemn intolerance for anything but love,
and it's rooted in love.
It's rooted in beauty.
It's rooted in a sense of simpleness and ambiguity.

And so I'll focus on discernment and breathing.
We've all earned a learner's permit.
Permit yourself to grieving,
and be freeing,
and to teething when you're teething,
and see peace in believing bereavement's bereft brethren's
seven settlement's indebtedness to the betterment of love
and to the practice of love,
and to the sadness that comes
with the lack thereof.

I won't speak to the world when the world isn't listening
deeply.
That's why I waited this long to release this song of songs,
songs of Solomon enthroned with the wood of Lebanon,
songs entombed in the womb until I felt that there's room
to stop absconding with my pregnancy,
And now Ba'alhamon is expecting me,
expectantly.

And I'm incessantly setting precedence in the presence of the president
who presides presently over the peasantry.
I'll set aside a suit of simple symmetry.
Synthetically, I synthesize the story of what's natural.
It's a glass half full of embattled saturn plasma.
It's a boy,
no it's a girl.
It's a toy,
no it's the world's surface enduring certain circumstantial services...
super solemn. superficial. super sacrificial splurges in our endless bags of purchases.
The sermon at your service spoke to sympathetic tourniquets in need of seeking reassurance
for the next effeminate person to pool a possible burden.

I speak urgently because it's urgent.
This emergency's emergent,
and I'm a fuckin' word surgeon,
serving solace from my person,
signs of solidness ensuring
that I'm a growing and a maturing little
butterfly.

I. Can. Fly.
Signed, my guardian angel,
staying sane at the same table as the stablest savior saves
all the other saviors,
bringing peace to your neighbors through osmosis.
The closest soldier knows this war is hopeless.
He knows that we're impoverished by the fists we've thrown,
so now our foes can go home,
and we can plow the ground with swords we've melted down
and use them to harvest all these seeds we've sewn.

So now we're saying prayers of gratefulness like grace is all we've known.
We're singing songs of freedom like they're songs we've always sung.
We're swinging scythes like pendulums, connecting one and one and one.
We're sweetly leaking Jesus juice like Abraham's last son.
Tell Isaac that his time has finally... come.

And now I'm looking at the moon like I'm the sun,
and she's reflecting passion back to me, the energy to run,
and I don't care that it's night time.
I don't care that day is done.
I don't care that all the owls stare and judge me like I'm dumb,
because I'm not dumb.
I know enough to know that I don't know.
My wisdom is sufficient to be quiet and to listen,
because in the basic-est of instances our languages are different
and the isolated brain is intrinsically indifferent

so I'm going to be a body and I'm beating like a heart,
and I'm hoping that you'll be the blood to travel with this art,
because the muscles might be tired.
They might be atrophied.
They might be looking to caffeine for energy they need.

But come on, let's get together.
Someone be the lungs.
Someone be the need to breathe, and
someone be the tongue.
Someone be the eyes and ears, and
someone be the hands
Someone who can persevere,
the feet on which we stand
and you're the rock, body.
No one's gifts left useless.
The Universe needs you to do the best that you can do with
just what you've been given,
with everything you've got.
Your finite contribution fills a hole that mine does not.

And together we can stand.
Together we can run.
Together we collect our calories straight from the sun.
Together we envision all our lives combined as one,
and together we compose this bloody, bleeding, beating drum.

Track Name: This is Just a (Love) Song

To: the most beautiful being in the room,
human being, I love living with you
in the Truth.

And if the power of Truth takes me away from you,
I'll have to love living that life too.
And if it takes you away from me, well
we already know how painful that would be.

It would be really, really, really, really bad
but for all the good
and all the hard times we've had
I love you and I miss you and I'm glad.

And this is just a love song.
It's dedicated to my pain,
dedicated to the times
that I've cried in the rain.
It's dedicated to my own dedication.

And this is that sensation
when you're feeling really sad
and you realize that sadness is beautiful.
Sadness is suitable,
and it's totally appropriate
for everything you've been through.

This is that place where sadness and love can co-exist.
You feel neither anger nor listlessness.
And maybe you feel love.
Maybe love songs can speak to your sorrow,
fall in love with tomorrow
and yesterday
re-learn how to play.

And this is just a love song.
It's dedicated to you.
Dedicated to everything you've been through.
This is for you.

And if I showed up at your door, would you talk to me?
Or would you call the police
and get me off the streets
because to love you right now would be crazy?

I just came looking for the truth
because I love the truth
and I thought that I loved you too,
but you were just a lie
and that's fine,
it's your life,
just don't bring your lies into mine.

And maybe you really do believe that I'm crazy.
OK,
praise be to God.
I didn't need you.
I just came looking for the truth.
It's sad that I had to drag it out of you
and your paranoid parents too.

And this is just a love song.
It's dedicated to this huge misunderstanding,
dedicated to the year you left me stranded,
dedicated to this place where we've landed,
to the strange and subtle ways that we planned it,
to the space and the grace in the misalignment
of all these planets.

No, this isn't for you.
This is dedicated to the Truth.

Track Name: How I Built Myself, With My Mother's Help

So now I'll pick myself up,
and dust myself off,
and write a little love song about myself.
I'm still amazing.
Just this existence is crazy,
how I built my self with my mother's help
and then emerged to learn the world that I'm going to serve is in tatters,
shattered pieces on the ground is what I found.

So now I'm not feeling lazy and I'm not afraid.
I'm feeling brave.
Everyone around me's in pain
and I can listen to it.
I can even love them through it.
Like: not take it on
just take it in
and stand for it.
Inhale exhaust and transform it into something
that's advertent, emergent and infallible like love.
This healing that I'm feeling is a real thing,
not a symbol,
something you can touch.

So now I'll pick myself up,
and dust myself off,
and write a little love song about myself.
I'm still amazing.
Just this existence is crazy,
how I built my self with my mother's help
and then emerged to learn the world that I'm going to serve is in tatters,
shattered pieces on the ground is what I found.

So now I'm beautiful.
That's not a guilty admission,
it's just a fact.
As badly as I've been treated,
I'm resolved to not lose that.

And if that means feeling anger,
if it means not feeling love,
in a manner of speaking
a man or a woman sometimes has got to stand up
and that's beautiful.

Our oppressors are human.
They've got their own painful reasons
for the pain they inflict.
But forgiveness isn't trust.
Our anger is natural.
Sometimes it's myself that I've got to forgive.

So now I'll pick myself up,
and dust myself off,
and write a little love song about myself.
I'm still amazing.
Just this existence is crazy,
how I built my self with my mother's help
and then emerged to learn the world that I'm going to serve is in tatters,
shattered pieces on the ground is what I found.

Track Name: Let's Get Naked

Adam wasn't full of knowledge,
Adam was ashamed.
Adam only knew about
that one mistake he made,

and the worst mistake ever
was to give these leaves to us.
I mean, our own doubts and fears
would be perfectly enough,

but no. We've got to hide them
and ignore what's at the roots.
We're told to love our fig leaves
more than we love the truth.

But I'm here to tell you Adam,
I'm shedding all your shame.
I'm throwing off this clothing
and I'm dancing in the rain.
I've got a lot to lose by speaking truth
but even more to gain.

then let's run around,
show the world the stuff we've found,
the beauty we've kept hidden
underneath these
pounds and pounds
of extra clothing.

I'm shedding my self-loathing
and replacing it with trust.
I'm only here to love.
I'm through with thinking anyone's the judge.

Track Name: Clothe Yourself in Righteousness

And when I do get dressed,
I want to think for a second.
Dress up for church
and dress down for the fellowship?

No. If its all God's Earth,
there's no place for irreverence.
Everything I do is prayer.

From cleaning my ears
to not combing my hair,
It's all love for this life
that we've been given.
It's not just above us,
it's around us and it's living,

One way that I show that
I'm grateful is my linens.

So I'm going to sport some duds
that don't cause war to my brothers,
clothe myself in the wastefulness of others.
Now I'm digging in dumpsters,
singing out a song of solidarity with lovers,
pay respect to our mothers, like:

Like, clothe yourself in righteousness,
you don't need that business suit.
You don't need that law degree to be free
or to speak the truth.

I said, clothe yourself in righteousness,
you don't need expensive boots.
You don't need a degree from seminary
to know that God loves you.

And when I wear plainclothes,
my intentions are simple.
My soul is on my sleeve
for you to see.

And if I have to march through the streets
like Solomon Eccles,
you'll know that God decided
to make a sign out of me.

And that's my public witness.
That's my citizen's oath.
That's my challenge to you,
to get naked and grow.

It's not our job to judge
the seeds we see being sown
when we're faithful to our inner guide,
our inner light's shown

and that might look like darkness.
That might feel like fear.
That might send people running.
It might make things clear.

It might leave you naked,
stripped and forsaken
with a hole through your tongue
and a "B" like James Naylor,

You were built for a purpose.
You were built to know love.
You were built to be perfectly flawed
and grown up.

And when we're called to a witness,
we know we'll be equipped with
the tools and the power we need
to get it done.

So clothe yourself in righteousness,
you don't need that business suit.
You don't need that PH.d to be free
or to speak the truth.

I said clothe yourself in righteousness,
you don't need expensive boots.
You don't need a degree from seminary
to know that God loves you.

And when I do get dressed,
I want to think for a second.
Dress up for church
and dress down for the fellowship?

If its all God's Earth,
I'm getting dressed for benevolence.
If every place is sacred
then I'm a resident.

My plain dress addresses my respect
like my reticence.
My plain dress: designed as a sign
of my settled-ness
with everything, everyone, every situation.
Yo it's all sacred.
I dress to show that I'm grateful.

A simple sign of faith,
a simple song of Solomon,
a simple kind of way that I walk
through this unpromised land.

Dress up when I'm with peasantry,
dress up to be noble,
dress the same that I did yesterday
as when the world is over.

I'll dress up for a wedding,
dress the same the day after,
dress up for celebration
and dress up for a disaster.

I'll dress like I'm settled.
I'll dress like it matters.
I'm dressed for the here,
I'll dress the same for the hereafter.

So clothe yourself in righteousness,
you don't need that business suit.
You don't need that law degree to be free
or to speak the truth.

I said clothe yourself in righteousness,
you don't need expensive boots.
You don't need a degree from seminary
to know that God loves you.

Track Name: Giving Life Leaves Marks

Living in the wilderness is wild,
and I lost it as a child
with my father
and the long december,
and i've got reason to believe in belief,
like having faith in reason
or a seasonal grievance
that encapsulates my grief.

I'll be brief but my words probably won't.
I wrote them when the air was clear
and fair and full of hope
and I've been living in between defeat and growth,
with faith my locomotive,
Quakerism hitches,
and a whole lot of baggage cars to tote.

And it's been a long time since childhood.
I spun around five times to get lost in the woods
and now I spin ten.
Now I know where I've been.
It doesn't matter where I'm going,
all that matters is the way that I walk.

I'm not soft spoken
but I'm gentle when I talk,
'cause I know we're all broken.
We're all in pain.

I'm witness to the suffering
in front of my face.
The symptoms can diminish
when i give them a name.
I call it "pain”.

But this is what we're born into,
so this is what we'll love.
We'll love it with our eyes open,
knowing that it's rough.
We'll love it full of hope,
knowing loving's not enough,
it's just a plausible way to stay focused.

And for your hopelessness,
I prescribe love,
as the first motion.
We're sowing seeds into this ocean,
planting trees and then hoping
that their leaves will open
and they'll bear fruit
like I'm bearing now.
My elders can look upon this song and smile.

I can't live without my breath.
The second best
is when i give into the settlement.
I'm sediment's guest.

The reason that
I've let myself be delicate
is that I've listened for what's needed
and become, as best as I can,
a man in this culture.

Instead of a dance, I'm the band
and an adult.
Young, and with unsung songs
slung over my shoulder.

Simple and solemn,
sometimes sad before I'm over
all the guilt and the pain
that this living life can give us.

Before I was born,
I was addressed to be delivered
to a midwife in crisis
down in Richmond, Virginia.

I can still feel the power of that room,
the comfort of the womb,
the realization that I wasn't facing
all this pain and all this loneliness alone.

And still I can call up
my mother on the phone.
Listen for the dial tone.

Listen, Mom, my teenage years were hard
and I'm sorry.
I hope that I didn't leave you too scarred,
but I know that you were ready.

Giving life leaves marks,
when you brought me into your arms
out of the darkness.

It took me fifteen years
to really open my eyes
and then ten more
to get over all the surprises,
and in ten more years
I'll be taking care of you
and I'm ready.
Anything you need me to do,
I'm there.

I see pictures with your long straight hair
when you were younger than me
and I'm glad that you were happy.
I'm glad that you had me.
I'm satisfied with the present
and with everything that's passed me.

And as we move into this sad universe
I keep remembering you
and our connection since birth.
I keep remembering what
our connection is worth.
I keep remembering.

And now you're lost in this awesome.
Son of a gun, lost 'em.
It's often the cause of my problems.

When I'm alone in Boston,
it's back to the softened offense
and that solemn intolerance
for anything but awesome.

Awe that I stand in.
All of my fans randomly left
red handed and they caravanned tandem
through the tanned red planets
that supported life evenly
and, seemingly releasing me,
conveniently, they banned it.

And I sanded down the sands of time
like granite
till they dropped through
this hourglass of mine, like,
"damnit."

Quickly.
Like time was my enemy.
And rhymes had befriended me.

And I've seen minutes that I could stand on.
Friends that couldn't go home.
A brother that knows me.
A life of my own.
Limits and emotions.
Penitence for old poems.
The denigration of this bold, strong
platform I've been placed on.

And now I'm solidly committed to living,
sending out flowers from all of these towers
I've been in.

Depending on what will come,
this is lifetime music.
I'm giving it up for lent
before I lose it.

And when my time comes to live,
I'll take the time to do it.
Time is just a tunnel,
there's a fine line through it.

In a sense, innocence sends friends
into friendliness.
If time is the enemy then I'm the revolution.
And I will be televised far into the future
in the format that follows after YouTube.

We can assume two truths
that always follow after youth.
One isn't knowledge
and the other isn't true.

Following birth, actively bath born babies
find the surest way to die.
I call myself "I".
I only just recently learned to tie a tie
and I exclusively do it with someone
standing right behind I
feel like my feelings have a fine felt fiber
that have woven together and been
melded by this fire,
so if you cause me to feel,
you can expect me to pause.
I've got to travel,
unravel back to the cause.
It goes:

Only loss is an inevitable cause.
Gain doesn't strain the same muscles.
Struggle maintains the veins main
claim to the brain.
The spinal chord attaches
where they left off.

In a blog I lifted up my brothers in arms
and then their legs caved
right at the ankles.

Now I take the same fire power training
lanes that I've gained
and list them on my resume as ancient.

Listen up:
Lives haven't lost living given that they're ending.
My solitude's sweet beat seeps out from beginnings
like a street sweep might enjoy a chimney.
Like a free week benefits from ending.

That'll take defending.

Listen: leverage everything you've heard.
More than just the words.
Find a way to benefit from
all that's been inferred.

All that has occurred
has evolved into sure bets
placed under duress,
leading us to lively little
games of insurance.

And if the Earth can endure this,
I'm sure that it's worth it.
Shout out loud that its
the birth of our purpose.

(shout out loud that
that's the birth of our purpose)

(again)

Only loss is an inevitable cause.
Gain doesn't strain the same muscles.
Struggle maintains the veins' main
claim to the brain.
The spinal chord attaches
where they left off.

In a blog I lifted up my brothers in arms
and then their legs caved
right at the ankles.

Now I take the same fire power training
lanes that I've gained
and list them on my resume as ancient.

Listen up:
Lives haven't lost living given that they're ending.
My solitude's sweet beat seeps out from beginnings
like a street sweep might enjoy a chimney.
Like a free week benefits from ending.

That'll take defending.

Listen, leverage everything you've heard.
More than just the words.
Find a way to benefit from
all that's been inferred.

All that has occurred
has evolved into sure bets
placed under duress,
leading us to lively little
games of insurance.

And if the Earth can endure this,
I'm sure that its worth it.
Shout out loud that its
the birth of our purpose.